Tom Winnifrith Bank Hols BearCast - why short sellers are such good news for everyone

Comments

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   Marvin

   25 May 2015, 10:39

   Tom. Agree with you 100 per cent on the bears but have to take issue with you on the Labour party running out of other peoples’ money. The UK government cannot run out of money. The idea in nonsensical. It is the sole issuer of The GBP currency. It is meaningless to say it can run out just as it is to say it could save in it. You seem to accept the need for Greece to run its own deficit in drachmas with a floating exchange rate to stimulate its economy. Why not the same for the UK ?

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   I Swear

   25 May 2015, 15:07

   Agree on short selling, problem is with executive pay disconnected from share price in the main the losers in the short selling game are investors not the boards of these companies, as they are insulated with their pay packets and low number of shares owned in their companies. Therefore investor anger is directed incorrectly at the practice of short selling instead of at the management of the companies they are invested in whose pay is not directly related to share price performance, which in itself encourages poor management.

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   Mark Howitt

   26 May 2015, 01:22

   Blasting this one out just as the market opens…

   Been v busy over the past month but I’m spending some time writing this one for fun.

   There’s been a lot of drama over at ShareProphets about Chris Oil ‘abusing the market’ by reportedly tweeting that a stock is a BUY… while SELLING!

   Haven’t spent a massive amount of time researching this, but let’s assume that’s true.

   Now… is this… right or wrong? Good or bad?

   I have to say that you SHOULDN’T make investment decisions on the basis of a tweet. You should do fundamental analysis of the share and in my view aim to make a good long term investment. A tweet is almost meaningless really. Remember that everyone is doing what they think is best for themselves. You have to take responsibility for the investment decisions you make.

   I also have to say though TWEETING THAT A STOCK IS A BUY AND SELLING IS PRETTY BAD.

   I’ve never done that and never will. Personally I avoid AIM stocks anyway as they’re mostly too risky.

   But what else can I say… looking at the whole share investing and share writing picture?

   Chris Oil rang me up a few months ago and we had an interesting conversation about oil. I think he knows his stuff there. My most recent share purchase has been Royal Dutch Shell. I do believe that over time oil prices will rise, and Shell should be in good position to exploit that. Decent yield and good PE ratio too. The shares are still worth a buy at this price- my father thinks so too and I’m trying to convince him to buy more despite the fact that he “has a lot of Shell already.”

   How much did Chris Oil get paid for writing at ShareProphets?

   Nothing.

   I don’t think he really needed/needs the money that much. I have the feeling he like writing anyway. I encouraged him to set up his own blogspot.

   I also have to say though… when I was writing for another website I’m not even going to name he asked me to not write articles so that his articles would appear at the top of the webpage. I didn’t do that and found it quite… shocking.

   I don’t know man… I guess the drama will be good for ShareProphets viewing figures. Anyway, back to more money making for me!